The present invention relates to a method and system for collecting information concerning the quality of products from customers as well as during the manufacture and sale of the product, and retrieving and analyzing the accumulated information.
A failure information input method employing bar-codes is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open (Kokai) No. 63-40962, in which nothing is stated clearly about methods of accumulation, management, retrieval and analysis of data, and information concerning failure is referred to simply as "details of failure", which is obscure.
A quality information system is disclosed in "Quality Information System Linking Production Process and the Market", Toshiba Corp., Fukaya Works, ENGINEERS, August, 1987. This quality information system manages quality data acquired in the market by a main frame computer installed in the factory and applies a statistical method to the analysis of the quality data.
The foregoing prior art systems or methods have the following drawbacks. First, no consideration is given to items of data to be collected and the manner of collecting data, and hence problems arise in the practical application of the system to quality control. Secondly, no consideration is given to the method of accumulating and managing quality data and the method of retrieving data, and hence the system has problems in its cost performance and its feasibility including expandability. Third, the system has only functions for displaying the condition of the failure of a product having actually occurred in the field and problems in the quality of products, and is unable to function as a tool for locating the causes of failure and problems. Furthermore, no detailed consideration is given to setting conditions for operating the main frame computer to retrieve and analyze the information, and hence the dynamic or flexible operation of the edit function and analyzing function of the main frame computer cannot be expected.